The Sirens of Space (30 page)

* * *

The discovery of alien civilizations had
long been the dream of scientists and visionaries. The literature
of five hundred years had glowed with anticipation of the day when
the enlightened races of the Universe would deliver the answers to
the conundrums of creation to the human race, and lead them from
the chaos and disorder that they had built for themselves. But as
with many things, the anticipation was far different than the
reality, and the sudden confirmation of alien ships built by alien
technology proved more traumatic than any event since the Terran
Civil War. Disorder ruled the streets of every major city for
months as the authorities struggled to control the panic—caused
foremost by the knowledge that Terra was not alone, and helped
along by the handsome profits to be found in the doomsday trade. In
the capital the government fell, unable to persuade the Senate that
it could guarantee the safety of the people. A crisis government
rose in its place, committed to preserving Terra’s security
whatever the cost, and Terran science was once again conscripted to
military ends, striving to improve the ships and technology that
were Humanity’s only defense against an unknown and therefore
terrible menace....

* * *

To help secure the border and preserve
domestic peace, the Cosmic Guard began constructing a monitoring
station and starbase ninety light years past the agricultural
colony in the Hodges Binary system, and clamped strict, if futile,
restrictions on further settlement or private exploration in the
area. Within ten years Starbase 102, christened “Looking Glass” by
a forgotten media wag, was plotting alien trade routes and tracking
the steady progress of alien colonies toward Terra. Slowly the
panic subsided, but it remained a shadowy memory lurking beneath
the consciousness of every man and woman, like the knowledge of
mortality, an unpleasant reality pushed into the seamless
future....

* * *

...[I]n 2547, some unlicensed Terran ore
miners landed on a fertile planet 50 parsecs beyond Looking Glass,
seeking easy riches and a comfortable home base. Instead, they
found a small alien settlement. Within hours, Humanity’s first
contact with an alien civilization had produced the first
interstellar massacre, and threatened interstellar war.

* * *

It is 2550.

Three years of negotiating with the alien
Consortium have not brought peace. The Senate echoes with fifty
years of warnings about the alien menace.

And Terra’s factories are desperately making
starships.

T
he
Players

The Cosmic Guard

Yeoman Lars Anderson,
shift
supervisor

Commander Jeremy Ashton,
ship’s systems
officer

Denny Barrett,
crewman

Captain Tom Chandler,
a starship
captain

Admiral Porter Clay,
commander of the
Eastern Fleet

Yeoman Chief Gregory Connors,
supervisor
of enlistees

Roscoe Cook,
a native of Planet
Isis

Ens. Kirkland Dexter,
apprentice systems
officer

Captain Brian Fitzgerald,
a starship
captain

Ens. Tom Gerlach,
apprentice weapons
officer

Commodore Jefferson McKinley Jones,
senior
wing commander, Demeter Command

Andrew Larsen,
crewman

Lt. Cmdr. François LaRue,
first officer of
the Cruiser Constantine

Jim Martindale,
crewman

Ens. Mary Mathison,
apprentice radio
officer

Commodore Jason McIntyre,
senior wing
commander, Looking Glass

Ens. Connie McKenzie,
apprentice
navigator

Lt. Janet Mendelson,
ship’s
helmsman

Lt. Vera Nkwete,
supervising
communications officer, Ishtar Command

Lt. Karen Palmer,
weapons officer

Yeoman Rick Sillars,
shift
supervisor

Tom Sullivan,
crewman

Lt. Ronald Talbert,
ship’s
navigator

Captain Art Tanana,
a starship
captain

Lt. Dennis Underwood,
communications
officer

Lt. Cmdr. Bruce Van Horn,
ship’s chief
engineer

Admiral Winthrop Weatherlee,
commander of
Demeter Command

Commodore Miriam Wright,
commander of
Looking Glass

Spacers and Assorted Riff-Raff

Cyrus McGee,
spacer and former
pirate

Mason McGee,
brother of Cyrus

Chadborne Wilkes,
a space pirate

Terrans

Andrew Cook,
Roscoe’s father

Cornelius Cook,
Roscoe’s uncle

Thomas Cook,
Roscoe’s grandfather

Jonathan Osborne Grant,
Terran
Ambassador

Duncan Heathcoate,
senior senator from
Demeter

E. Emerson Hollenbach,
senior senator from
Earth

Irene McGinnis,
senior senator from
Isis

Nicholas Schiller,
a Demetrian
industrialist

Mikos Sarkisian,
President of the Terran
League

Suzie Yang,
presidential aide and
journalist

Veshnans

Munshi,
a translator

Zatar,
a diplomat

Crutchtans

G’Rishela,
the Imperator’s ambassador to
Terra

Ja’Rend XCVI,
Imperator of the Crutchtan
Empire

A Select
Gazetteer

of Obscure Heavenly
Bodies

Athena,
a Terran planet

Balarium,
seat of the Grand Alliance of
the Consortium

Ceres,
a Terran planet

The Crutchtan Cloud
, a vast natural
formation of rocks, gases, and precious elements

Demeter,
third most populous Terran
planet

Earth,
former capital of the Terran
League, most populous Terran planet

Gaea,
a Terran planet

The Great Divide,
the Crutchtan name for
the Neutral Zone

g’Khruushte,
ancestral home and capital of
the Crutchtan Empire; also, Crutchan Empire

Gr’Shuna,
a Crutchtan planet and regional
capital

Gutterman’s Gap,
a narrow passage to Isis
through the Nakahashi Storms

Hodges Binary,
an agricultural colony east
of Ishtar

Ishtar
, Terra’s easternmost planet

The Ishtari Belt,
a formation of rocks,
gases, and precious elements near Ishtar

Isis,
Terra’s westernmost planet

Khu’ukhana Rift,
a narrow passage through
the Crutchtan Cloud

Looking Glass,
colloquial name of Starbase
102

Mullinberry’s Star,
the star dominating
the Demeter system

The Nakahashi Storms
, a large and intense
formation of gases and rocks east of Isis

New Babylon,
capital of the Terran League,
second most populous Terran planet

New Calais,
a Terran planet

Pirate’s Alley,
a dangerous stretch of
space from the Ishtari Belt to Demeter

Riley’s Station,
a private starbase and
interstellar port of call along the Terran frontier

Shun’Galanga,
a Crutchtan scientific
outpost

Valhalla,
a Terran planet

Zarathustra,
one of two inhabited Terran
planets west of Earth

Acknowledgments

W
hile technology enhances
our lives in many ways,
nothing will ever replace the people close to us, or those who help
us confront the challenges we encounter along the way.

Writing can be a lonely endeavor. Producing
a book, however, is impossible without the assistance of a great
many people—many of whom an author never even gets the chance to
meet, let alone to thank. Among the many who have helped bring this
book to print are many whose contributions are no less critical
merely because they pass largely without notice—including the
workers running the printing machines, who literally bring a book
to life.

Often taken for granted is the indulgence of
an author’s family, as they patiently listen to a thousand worries
and complaints, as well as enduring the endless debates and
controversies within the author’s own mind which occasionally are
vented audibly—often about minuscule revisions and word choices
that would otherwise pass unnoticed, and are often undetectable by
the human eye. During the many years of writing this
series—spanning the entire Reagan and Bush Administrations, as
well as the first two Clinton Years—and the even longer time it
took to bring the work to print, it was a great comfort to be able
to count on their tolerance and forbearance, no matter how
maddening or difficult I might be at any given moment.

Other friends and colleagues, in and out of
the legal profession, have proven to be a constant source of
strength and help. While they number too many to list, I have to
give special thanks to Mark Cavanagh, James Shaw, and Kevin
Huntsman for their early encouragement; to my son, Jason, for
helping to keep me from giving up hope after the entire work was
completed and nobody seemed the slightest bit interested; to Jeff
Joyce, Marilyn Eisenbraun, Jaimie Powell, my parents, Wallace and
Alice Caminsky, and my wife, Nonie, for providing feedback and
suggestions, and for helping me proofread and edit the text in
order to get it ready—or, at least readier—for print; and to Nadine
Dyer and Christopher Reaske, my favorite English teachers, for
correcting as many defects in my writing as they could manage in
the short time they had.

Despite everyone’s help and best efforts,
the shortcomings in what follows are mine.

The story continues in

Part II of
The Guardians of Peace:

About the
Author

Jeffrey Caminsky,
a lifelong resident of Planet Earth, lives in Livonia,
Michigan with his wife and family. His books include a book about
soccer officiating,
The Referee’s
Survival Guide
, and
The
Sonnets of William Shakespeare
, a guide to
Elizabethan poetry. In an alternate reality, he is a public
prosecutor in Detroit. His book
The Sirens
of Space
is the first book in the
Guardians of Peace
adventure series.

Connect with Jeffrey Caminsky online at:

Jeff’s
Blog

Jeff’s Facebook Page

Also b
y
Jeffrey Caminsky:

The Referee’s Survival Guide

All Fathers Are Giants (ed.)

The Sonnets of William Shakespeare (ed.)

The Guardians of
Peace
series:

The Sirens of Space

The Star Dancers

Clouds of Darkness

Coming soon:

The Guardians of Peace

What the Critics Have to
Say

“
A penetrating critique…[that] lays
open the social and political fault lines of
26
^th
Century
Terra.”

S.L. Yang,
Trans-Terran Dispatch

“
A sympathetic and realistic portrayal
of the ordeals of Academy life…[and] an unvarnished look at the
many facets of life among Terran starfarers.”

G.S. Bethune,
CosGuard Academy News

Covington, New Babylon

“
[U]nfortunately, the author seems to
lack more than a passing familiarity with the geography of Planet
New Babylon.”

A.J. Huffington,
New Dublin Times Review of Books

New Dublin, Demeter